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E_T_Smith

@E_T_Smith@dice.camp

I currently exist ... or do I?

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E_T_Smith , to random
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I'm playing in an RPG session at a con for the first time in a while ... and it's funny how casually I fall into a director's stance to make things more interesting and to encourage the other players. Even as a player, I'm still a GM

E_T_Smith , to random
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A new used book store recently opened near me (a wonder in itself, given how rare they've become) and they have an unexpectedly wide spread of gaming materials. Working on my own FASERIP retro-clone, these are well-timed finds. On first read-through, they make it clear how MSHRPG was first and foremost designed as a battle-map game. "Time Trap" is directly just a contrivance to teleport the PCs to different battlefields to face villains of escalating power.

E_T_Smith OP ,
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@SJohnRoss Thart reminds me: one of the most intriguing qualities of TSR's ramshackle "Conan" RPG, another game from their "universal action chart" family, is that obviously it was originally intended to be another battle-map game, judging by the packaging and several errant references in the texts to things like grids and figure-facings, but something must have gone wildly off the rails in the production process, resulting in ... well, like I said, a really ramshackle game.

E_T_Smith , to random
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Recently retrieved from a giveaway pile, it's possible that free was still too high a price for me to pay. Amazing Engine is a weak RPG system backed by sparse worldbooks, only notable as an artifact of late-stage TSR's flailing attempts to grasp after its diminishing audience. As failures go, I'm not even sure it's an interesting one.

Mark_Krawec ,
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@E_T_Smith @peteramthor @artikid @SJohnRoss - The impression I got even at the time was that someone had decided TSR needed a GURPS & this was going to be it. Have to say I liked that the stamina/damage points for the same PC core would fluctuate depending on how fighty the setting was. FFQC, don't get into a fistfight if you want to keep all your teeth; Bughunters, you ain't got time to bleed.

artikid ,
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@SJohnRoss @Mark_Krawec @E_T_Smith @peteramthor Masterbook... that's TORG, right? I kinda liked it back in the day. I think it was a lot better than other games with a similar idea (Yes Rifts, I'm looking at you). Probably too much crunch for the current me.

E_T_Smith , to random
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Today is my 50th birthday. Where do I go to pick up my "Garrulous Old Gamer" certificate that let's me spin hours-long stories about campaigns past and begin every sentence with "back in my day..."?

E_T_Smith , to random
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Found one of my old entries for the 200 Word RPG Challenge, and with some polish and a little expansion, put it it up on Itch.io

https://etsmith.itch.io/quarters

E_T_Smith , to random
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The Index Card RPG offers me the unique frustration of rules designed with outstanding elegance, cleverness and usability, truly one of the best put together systems I've ever seen ... aimed squarely at a play-style I don't like.

E_T_Smith , to random
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1/2 Trying to summarize (what I call ) for purposes of an introductory document is surprisingly slippery. The problem is you have to address all these assumptions about how role-playing works that readers will project into the explanation. So I'm spending more words explaining what it isn't than on what it is.

E_T_Smith OP ,
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2/2 The three core precepts , as I see them:

  • De-gamifying: playing the world, not a rules set (this is where most of the "isn't" comes from; really amazing how wide and deep expectations of gamification have become, and not just in games).

  • Decommodifying: approaching the experience as something you create, not consume.

  • Independent Imagination: bit of a follow-on from above, legitmacy/authenticity of the world as created by the table's efforts, not an outside authority.

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